


The Girl and the Statue

by authenticcadence18



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Accidental Confession, Alternate Universe, Angst, Episode Fix-it, F/M, Miraculous Ladybug Love Square, Post-Episode: s03 La Marionnettiste 2 | The Puppeteer 2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-02-07 11:09:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21457069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/authenticcadence18/pseuds/authenticcadence18
Summary: When Marinette stumbles across Adrien's statue in the Musée Grévin, she realizes this might be the perfect opportunity to practice confessing to the real Adrien!But there's a catch....(This is an alternate take on the infamous "statue scene" in Puppeteer 2!)
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 34
Kudos: 126





	The Girl and the Statue

**Author's Note:**

> So I've had this written for awhile now! The "statue scene" in Puppeteer 2 has rubbed me the wrong way since I first watched the episode, and writing this for myself was my way of coping with that. 
> 
> Now that season 3 is over and it ended...the way it did...I decided to finally post this...if nothing else than to muse on what COULD have been.

* * *

“ACK!!!” 

Marinette flailed at the sight of none other than Adrien standing in the middle of the exhibit hall. Had he heard her talking to herself??? Oh gosh, he’d totally heard her talking to herself!! THIS WAS A DISASTER!!

...Why wasn’t he moving?

A knot of suspicion twisted in Marinette’s stomach. Lady WiFi could freeze people in their tracks, so Hawkmoth could have granted another hapless victim a similar power. Worry mounting, Marinette took a few cautious steps toward Adrien. He remained motionless. 

And then Marinette remembered Alya and Nino had dragged her to the Musée Grévin today. Her expression relaxed. 

This was Adrien’s statue!

An exhale of relief escaped Marinette’s lungs as tension she didn’t realize she’d been carrying melted away. “Oh thank goodness!” she breathed with a chuckle. “That was a close one! For a second I thought you were the real deal!!” She angled her head towards Tikki and whispered, “They sure did a quick job of fixing up Adrien’s statue.” 

Tikki, who was currently huddled within Marinette’s purse, knew this Adrien was in fact the real deal. But she couldn’t risk revealing herself—especially not in front of Chat Noir!!—and so she shut her eyes and prayed for her chosen to ignore her for the time being. 

And for her to refrain from saying or doing anything she’d regret. 

When the kwami did not reply, Marinette pursed her lips and took another step towards the statue, admiring the handiwork of the artists who’d crafted it. “It looks just like him! ...It even has his eyes!” she breathed with a dreamy grin. She reached out to touch his—its?—sculpted cheek, awestruck, but then thought better of it...it didn’t feel right to lay a hand on someone else’s artwork. 

Even if said artwork was the spitting image of the love of her life. 

As Marinette contented herself with gazing into the statue’s familiar green eyes, an idea occurred to her. “Maybe....” she whispered. “....maybe I could practice what I’m going to say to Adrien on his statue!!” She whirled away from the wax figure with a skip in her step. “Yes yes yes, this is perfect! Confessing to a statue that looks like Adrien will better prepare me to confess to him in the flesh!” 

Tikki winced and silently willed her chosen to walk away and do literally anything else....but to no avail. She groaned and vowed to tell Plagg a thing or two about guiding his chosen to make smarter choices in the future. 

Much as he hated to admit it, Adrien knew he ought to quit his charade right then and there. He could walk up behind Marinette, surprise her, and then laugh the incident off. It would be no more than a prank between two friends, right? But he couldn’t shake the curiosity that had been welling inside him for the better part of the day. He had to know what Marinette was going to confess to. Especially if it involved how she perceived him. His painted smile faltered as he realized she might confirm she didn’t value him as a friend anymore, or worse, had NEVER valued him as a friend....

And then Marinette whirled back around, Adrien barely managing to fix his expression in time. 

If Marinette didn’t like him at all, he figured he might as well hear her say it now. Then he’d know exactly what he had to fix about himself to make that change. 

“Okay....here we go.....” Marinette muttered, clenching her fists and eyes shut for a moment before looking up into Statue-Adrien’s face. “Adrien.....I’m sure you remember how rocky things were between us when we first met. I thought you put gum on my seat...and I certainly didn’t try to hide how much I despised you for it.....” She chucked weakly, almost unable to fathom how differently she’d felt back then. 

“Aaaand here it comes,” Adrien internalized glumly (though his expression didn’t betray a single thought). “...the part where she admits she’s never stopped feeling that way and only pretends to like me because she doesn’t want to hurt my feelings or because I’m a model.........” 

“....but then.....everything changed when you gave me that umbrella.......” 

Adrien resisted the urge to blink in surprise. Umbrella? 

And then he remembered. The first day of school. The umbrella he’d given Marinette when it began to rain. The way they’d laughed and smiled like old friends before parting ways. 

Suddenly, the smile gracing his statuesque face was genuine. So Marinette valued his friendship after all! 

“This is going to sound really silly, Adrien, but....ever since that day with the umbrella.....” Marinette bit her lip and grimaced but found the strength to blurt out, “....I’ve been hopelessly in love with you!!” 

Wait.

Marinette groaned, the moment shattering. “No no no, that will never work!! that’s so lame....if I say that he’ll be too embarrassed to talk to me again.....how else could I phrase it?” Now she was pacing in a methodical pattern across the smooth tile floor. “Think like an actress, Marinette.... How about.....’My heart has belonged to you’? .......okay I guess that isn’t much better...but I’ll work on that later.”

**WHAT. **

“Okay, okay.” Marinette whirled around and faced the Adrien statue again. She squinted for half a second, almost certain there was something slightly different about it...but then shook her head. She was just nervous. “Adrien, ever since you handed me that umbrella, my heart has belonged to you.” 

She cocked her head and pursed her lips, considering her next words, before continuing. “I know you probably think I only THINK I’m in love with you just because you’re a model and you’re super gorgeous—uh, okay, maybe I should leave that part out—but that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

She gazed up into the statue’s deep green eyes once more—good GRIEF they looked real, how did the artists do it??—and found herself recalling all the times the real Adrien had gazed fondly back. “...I admire you, Adrien, because of how kind you are. When I’d been nothing but horrible to you, you went out of your way to be kind to me when it would have been so much easier to brush me aside and leave me in the rain. You go out of your way to treat everyone with respect, no matter what, and you encourage us to pursue our goals, no matter how crazy they seem.”

As these words sunk into Marinette’s brain, the light in her eyes began to dim. 

“....so why am I so scared to confess to you?” she whispered, fear and shame creeping into her body like unwanted guests. “....I know you’ll be nice about it, even if you don’t feel the same way. I know you’ll still try to be my friend. So why am I so scared to tell the real you how I feel? Why am I so utterly terrified of rejection that I can’t put myself out of this misery??

“Adrien, sometimes I wish I didn’t love you...” She gazed past the statue, another pair of green eyes lingering in her memory for the faintest moment. 

“Sometimes I wish I could move on. But I just....I just CAN’T.” She held down a sob, the world suddenly spinning around her. “....no matter how hard I try, you’re just too dear to me to give up....and if I confess for real, and you say no, even though you’ll be nice about it......I’ll have to give you up......and that will hurt so much more than not knowing...”

Marinette managed a small grin. “I’m sorry, Adrien,” she whispered, tentatively reaching out to cup the statue’s cheek. 

“I guess I won’t be confessing today after all......” 

......there was something odd about this statue. Normally the wax figures were cold and stiff to the touch. Though they looked frighteningly real, one touch was enough to confirm they in fact were not. 

But Adrien’s statue didn’t feel cold or stiff. On the contrary, it felt warm and soft and....

And just like Adrien’s cheek had felt the day she’d kissed it. 

Marinette’s hand trembled as she snapped it to her chest. She backed away, breaths growing more and more rapid by the second. The figure before her did not move, but she was starting to detect things she’d been too preoccupied to detect before. A shallow rise and fall of the statue’s chest. An almost imperceptible twitch of an eyelash. A small tuft of hair that wasn’t perfectly coiffed, as she expected a statue’s hair would be. 

“.........Adrien?” she managed to squeak. 

For once in her life, Marinette prayed this was the doing of an akuma. She’d much rather fight living statues as Ladybug than deal with the repercussions of accidentally confessing to Adrien as Marinette. It would have been a relief for the statue to pounce at her. 

But it didn’t pounce. The statue—no, Adrien—instead took a tentative step forward and looked at her. “Marinette—“ he began, in a voice that was gentle and pleading all at once. 

But Marinette was already sprinting away with her head in her hands. 

Adrien gaped in the direction she’d gone.

“.....so much for not being Marinette’s type,” Plagg quipped from within his chosen’s jacket. 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! I hope you enjoyed it! :)
> 
> EDIT: Okay, I am currently working on a continuation of this!! Not sure when it will be finished, but it is coming!! :D


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